Pipes submerged within a body of water are often used to, among other things, transport fluids and/or to act as a conduit for wires, cables, and hoses. (As contemplated herein, the term "submerged within a body of water", includes at least partially burying the pipe in the material comprising the bottom of the body of water, and the body of water is contemplated to comprise any body of water including, but not limited to, oceans, lakes, and rivers.) One of the chief problems associated with placing a pipe beneath the surface of a body of water is that the pipe tends to float.
One method which may be utilized to prevent the pipe from floating is to bury the pipe anywhere from several inches to several feet below the floor of the body of water. However, there is often a tendency for the buried pipe to migrate upwards through the covering material, especially if the covering material comprises a liquefied particulate such as sand or silt. It is possible, in some instances, to supplement the covering material with an additional material such as concrete, but such a solution increases the costs associated with both laying and maintaining the pipe.
For pipes equipped with orifices for fluid inlet or outlet, the existence of "fines" such as sand and fine gravel in the cover material, or otherwise nearby, tends to be problematic. Among other things, fines tend to contaminate any fluid flowing into the pipe, and cause the pipe to clog. Although covering the orifices with filters provides a possible solution, such filters also tend to become clogged over time, thereby reducing throughput, or requiring reverse flow cleaning and eventual replacement of the pipe. The difficulties associated with pipe replacement, as alluded to previously, are often increased by measures used to prevent pipe flotation and/or migration.
Thus there is a continuing need to develop improvements to pipes to decrease their tendency to float and migrate upwards through a covering material, and to decrease the number of times and frequency that the pipe needs to be replaced.